safety [Kakashi Hatake x OC]

eighty-three

"It's rude to stare." Kakashi huffed bemusedly, a sly smirk surely stretching beneath his mask.

"I was not staring!" Eri retorted and quickly glanced away with flaming cheeks.

"Sure you weren't." He rolled his one playful eye and made his way to the table, ruffling the girl's hair while he was at it. Once he sat, he sighed and relaxed a bit, then watched her finish plating with a gentle, adoring look.

She wasn't expecting such seemingly reserved, stoic man to wear that look, so it certainly caught her off-guard. "What are you looking at?" Considering he had just called her out, she was going to give him twice as hard of a time. "... with that strange look in your eye."

"Nothing in particular." He hummed and looked down. Yeah, he still loved her.

"Did you just miss me that much?"

"I'll let you figure that one out."

"You're weird."

"Thank you."

Right after she took her first bite, he blurted out the thought circulating in his head: "Eri."

She looked up with her big, dark eyes and hummed in acknowledgement.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" Her voice trembled ever-so-slightly.

"You don't remember anything, and it seems as though you and Anko got close, yet you're here this morning."

"How close do you think Anko and I are?" Eri furrowed her brows and narrowed her eyes.

Kakashi blinked quickly and leaned back, knowing he said too much in asking his question, yet he was curious. "I wasn't sure. I just figured after the mission you would have... bonded." She didn't know he had seen them.

The girl gritted her teeth insecurely in the most awkward expression she could muster, seen as she couldn't bring herself to grin, and she glanced away nervously. "I guess you could say that." Quick to drop the subject, her face brightened when she looked back at him and answered his question: "Honestly, I don't really have a reason for being here other than the fact that I wanted to see you." Again, her eyes focused on her plate. "I couldn't shake that I just wanted to be around you... I guess that's pretty strange." She chuckled half-heartedly.

Hearing her shyly express how she felt made him warm and hopeful. "It's not strange at all." He muttered gently, got up - having mysteriously finished his plate before Eri could even steal the tiniest glimpse of his face - and took the seat beside her. His stature was much larger than hers, so he tugged her chair closer and and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her head to his chest so that she didn't have to look at him as a stranger as they talked. "We were close."

She could feel his low voice vibrate beneath his muscular form, and while she was shocked for a moment, she exhaled and allowed herself to melt in his warm hug. He could feel her tenseness slowly leave her body beneath his strong and assuring fingers. "Anko told me that we lived together for two years." She confessed.

He stiffened, but only for a quick moment before he was able to say, "We did."

"Can I ask you questions about it?"

"About us living together? Yeah."

"How did I act with you from the start? I can't imagine that I trusted you right away, even though I feel like I can now."

"You were pretty... open." He laughed a bit. "But your defense mechanism was to flirt in a very questionable way."

"It was?" Her cheeks reddened.

"Yeah. It definitely caught me off guard in the beginning, but I learned how to play that game, too." She could practically feel the pride emanating from him. It made her want to giggle, but she refrained and continued to ask questions.

"Did we sleep in the same room?"

"Not initially."

"Did we... sleep in the same bed at some point?"

"Not initially."

"Not initially?"

"Yeah... that lasted a couple of weeks."

"We shared a bed for almost two years?!" She gasped, and while she tried to sit up to look at Kakashi, he kept her at his chest. He was comforted in their conversation by not looking into her confused eyes.

"We did. You initiated it."

"Wow. What did you do to me?"

"I could ask the same thing." He rested his chin on top of her head."

As Eri sat there, held by the man who she had so much history with, yet couldn't recall any of it, the thought crossed her mind, hearing his heavy heartbeat in sync with hers. 'We loved each other, didn't we?'